After a challenging year for construction, there are signs that the recruitment market is beginning to turn but gains may only be short-term, according to recruiters.

Figures from the Office of National Statistics show that orders in the three months to August 2009 fell by 4% compared with the previous quarter. Orders in the year to August 2009 were down by 23% compared with the previous 12 months and orders in the three months to August 2009 dropped by 9% compared with the same period a year earlier.

September’s seasonally adjusted CIPS/Markit Construction Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) posted a reading of 46.7, indicating a further fall in UK construction sector activity, and the fastest fall since June.

But the index also indicates that UK construction companies are positive on prospects for business activity in twelve months’ time due to percieved improvements in future economic conditions.

Ray Connolly, director at Fawkes & Reece, told Recruiter that construction firms were now focusing on pre-project recruitment.

“There is a focus of every construction company to secure work. They are chanelling their resources into business development and estimating for the tendering stage. The market is beginning to turn.”

While Tim Lofus, director at Prisima who recruits architects, has seen an upturn in demand, he remains dubious over the long term prospects for the sector.

“There is more work than at the beginning of the year. The work I am getting is for schools. The roles in demand are related to rail and the public sector. I think they will disappear by the middle of next year. I am suspicious of a government releasing money before an election so a few projects have been unfrozen.

“In the early part of the downturn, people were naïve to what’s happening. There is now more of a sense of realism. There is a double crisis of a normal recession and the funding crisis where the money is not available. It contrasts with 1990-91 where the banks had tonnes of money but no-one to borrow it.”